Two hundred and fifty years of slavery. Decades of Jim Crow, housing discrimination and
other forms of systemic racism. All of that has
led to this... a shocking wealth gap
between Black and white households in the United States. An average gap of $850,000 that, some experts
believe, can be solved by something long overdue: reparations to the descendants
of enslaved Black people. But how do we even determine
who's eligible for reparations? And can the struggle for reparations
in other parts of the world teach us anything about what
needs to be done in the U.S.? To understand why there's a
call for reparations, there needs to be an understanding
of the scale of slavery. It was a crime against humanity
in which around 400,000 people were forcibly brought
to North America. Over the centuries, 10 million enslaved
people were legally treated as property in the United States, brutalized
and ruthlessly exploited for free labor, which was used to establish the country
as a leading global economy. In fact, one historian estimated that
by 1860, enslaved people were, quote, "worth some $3.5 billion, making them the largest single financial
asset in the entire U.S. economy." That's around $115 billion today. When slavery was abolished in 1865,
4 million formerly enslaved African Americans were freed. But, through their forced labor,
they created billions of dollars in generational wealth for their
captors, and none for themselves. Back then, the U.S. government
understood the need for reparations and passed an order to distribute
40 acres and a mule to all formerly enslaved families, so they could build wealth
and financial security. However, after the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln, President Andrew Johnson
vetoed the allocation and returned the land to
former slave owners. One way to reckon with America's
past and current wealth disparity is through reparations that
close the racial wealth gap. You should make direct monetary
payments to the eligible recipients. That's economist William Darity. He co-authored the book
"From Here to Equality," which outlines one of the most
comprehensive plans for what material reparations could
look like. So we estimate that this would require
an expenditure of approximately $350,000 per eligible, per
eligible recipient. You get a figure of approximately
$14 trillion. Reparations for the crime of slavery
and its legacy have long been a subject of national debate. I don't think reparations for something
that happened 150 years ago, for whom none of us currently living
are responsible, is a good idea. And I think they're using what
academics would call the "theory of distance,"
you know? That something is too far in the past
to have contemporary application. So it's easy to see why Congress
has yet to pass H.R. 40, a bill that was proposed
all the way back in 1989. It would set up a commission "to study
and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for
the institution of slavery, and its subsequent racial and economic discrimination
against African Americans." And while you cannot place a monetary
value on slavery and its lasting effects, there's a precedent of reparations programs
compensating victimized communities directly. Back in the U.S., the Civil Liberties
Act of 1988 designated $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans
who survived internment camps during World War II. The U.S. government has also made
payments in instances where it was not the
culpable party. Payments made to families
that lost loved ones during the course of the
9/11 attacks, as well as payments that are
being made to individuals who were held hostage in Iran at
the end of the Carter presidency. Up to $4.4 million per
hostage or their estates. In the case of slavery, the U.S. government
did promise reparations... it just reneged on it. In fact, when the U.S. finally issued
an apology for slavery, it included the disclaimer, "Nothing in this
resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States,
or serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States." Nor did the U.S. ever provide true
reparations, a process consisting of three things: acknowledgment, redress
and closure for grievous injustices. It's vital that the federal government
issue an apology, because that will create the justification
for the redress plan that follows. That brings us to who would
actually receive reparations. Those direct payments would
go to the roughly 47 million Americans who identify as Black. But under Darity's plan, the requirements
are a little more strict. First, Black Americans would have
to have identified as Black, Negro, African American or
Afro American for at least 12 years before any reparations
plan goes into effect. And they'd have to prove that
they had at least one ancestor who was enslaved in
the United States. One way to do that
is using the census. If your ancestor was present in the 1870
census, and was old enough to have been alive in 1850 or 1860,
but you can't find that person in the 1850 or 1860 census... That would suggests that they
were probably enslaved. That's because, before slavery was
abolished with the 13th Amendment, enslaved people were not
counted in the census. They're actually missing people
from the 1850 and 1860 census, and their absence there is a potential indicator
that they were probably enslaved. But while Darity's plan has received
traction, it still faces opposition. The impression down here is that
Caribbean people who live in the United States — Black people — would not
be entitled to any reparation paid by the U.S.government. But we are saying
that's not right. We're saying that's divisive of the Black
population in the United States. We are saying that Caribbean immigrants
have been harmed by that system through racial profiling, discrimination. See, the Black population in
the U.S. is pretty diverse. Most Black people are foundational
Black Americans, meaning they're American
descendants of enslaved people. Others are immigrants or the children
of immigrants who came to the United States from mostly
African and Caribbean countries. Those individuals may have ancestors
who were enslaved, but wouldn't be considered eligible recipients for
reparations in the United States. Descendants of the enslaved have a claim
that's linked directly to the failure to provide their ancestors with the
promised 40-acre land grants. And that's uniquely a debt that is
owed to the individuals who were enslaved and it was not met,
and to their descendants. The second reason that's somewhat
related is the fact that the current or existing racial wealth
gap in the United States is a consequence of policies that
have been pursued by the federal government. That
built white wealth to the detriment of Black wealth. A major policy Darity is referring
to is the Homestead Act of 1862, or H.R. 125, legislation to, quote,
"secure homesteads to actual settlers of public domain." The policy incentivized citizens
to move onto ancestral land that had been violently stolen
from Indigenous nations. It provided a 160-acre land grants
to over a million white families for a small fee, but excluded the
4 million formerly enslaved people from the program, who
had already been denied the 40-acre land grants they'd
been promised. Through the act, 270 million
acres of land were settled across 30 states,
over 124 years. Remember, owning land generates
income and passing land down to the next generation
builds wealth. So the consequences of that
decision are seen today. Approximately 45 million
living white Americans have benefited from this massive
asset-building legislation. I would argue that virtually all Black
people throughout the diaspora, the African Diaspora, have
a claim for reparations, but they don't all have a
claim for reparations from the United
States government. The horrors of slavery and
its consequences are not uniquely American. The transatlantic slave trade
transported approximately 12.5 million enslaved Africans
across the Americas. The overwhelming majority of
enslaved Africans were shipped directly to Latin America
and the Caribbean. Spain and Britain shipped
around 1 million enslaved Africans just to Jamaica. By 1833, slavery was abolished
throughout the British Empire. But instead of compensating
formerly enslaved people, Britain provided "reasonable compensation"
to slave owners, through a then-£20 million loan, which British taxpayers
fully repaid in 2015. According to one estimate, that's
worth over £20 billion today. For decades, descendants of enslaved
people have been fighting for reparations in these regions. And in 2013, several Caribbean
countries united to form the CARICOM Reparations Commission,
which developed a strategy for reparations that focuses
on reparatory justice. The 10-point plan begins
with the demand for an apology. Which is followed by calls
for repatriation, an Indigenous peoples development
program, eradicating illiteracy and debt cancelation,
to name a few. CARICOM has sent letters requesting
reparations from countries like Spain, France, Britain
and the Netherlands. The response was negative,
for the most part. And no country admitted
to the wrong, no country took responsibility, no country apologized, no country committed to repair. Today, we're still living with
the legacies of colonialism and enslavement that have left
Black populations across the globe at a disadvantage. There is definitely a case that can
be made that there has been a global pattern of exploitation
of people of African descent. We're here to demand
what's owed to us from the United
States government. And despite incremental progress
and different approaches to reparations programs,
people across the Americas continue to fight for redress. Right now, this is a
contentious issue, it's affecting relationships. World
relationships, global relationships. Country versus country
disputes exist. I think reparatory justice would
help the society to heal itself. Both people of African descent, African
people and European people. I think it would be good
and beneficial to all of us. Reparations! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? Reparations! When do we want it? Now! How do we want it? By any means necessary!
